The present invention relates to a safety device for a foldable baby bed, and more particularly a safety device that can prevent the frame of a stretched baby bed from being folded by unexpected force when babies are still in the bed.
Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, a conventional foldable baby bed has a frame that includes an upper part 1, four upright supports 2, a connecting rod combination 3, and a mattress support 4. The upper part has bending connectors 12, and corner connectors 11 so that it can be collapsed into smaller size. The upright supports 2 are connected to respective ones of the corner connectors 11 at upper ends, and are each connected to a corner foot 21 at a lower end. The connecting rod combination 3 includes two pairs of rods; the rods of each pair cross, and are pivoted to, each other; the rods are pivoted to respective ones of the corner feet 21 at outer ends; first feet 31 are provided to the combination to support the same on the ground when the bed is used. The mattress support 4 includes two connecting rods 41, which are pivoted to inner ends of the rods of the combination 3 at two ends; second feet 42 are provided to the rods 41 to support the same on the ground when the bed is used.
The folding operation of the frame of the foldable baby bed can be started by means of pulling a strap upwards that is connected to the mattress support 4. However, the bed is prone to be folded by unexpected force when babies are lying in it because it is not equipped with a safety device to prevent unintentional folding.
To overcome the above disadvantage, referring to FIGS. 3 and 4, the foldable baby bed is provided with a safety toggle combination, which includes two connecting members 51, a first arm 52, a second arm 53, a strap 56, and an intermediate arm 54. One of the connecting members 51 is joined to a first one of the two pairs of the rod combination 3, and the other one to the other one of the two pairs. The arms 52, and 53 are pivoted to respective connecting members 51 at outer ends, and pivoted to the intermediate arm 54 at inner ends. The strap 56 is connected to the intermediate arm 54. The safety toggle combination 5 can stretch to its full length with the intermediate arm 54 slightly sinking when the baby bed is unfolded for use, thus preventing unintentional folding of the bed due to unexpected force.
However, the safety toggle combination 5 is relatively complicated in structure, and therefore costs relatively much labor to assemble, causing increase of manufacturing cost.
Therefore, it is a main object of the present invention to provide such an uncomplicated safety device for a foldable baby bed that the manufacturing cost of the bed can be reduced.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a safety device for a foldable baby bed that folding and stretching of the baby bed can be done with increased smoothness.
The safety device has a tube that is pivoted to a base rod of the bed frame at the first end, and is movably passed through a locking member at the second so that a down facing cavity of the second end of the tube can fit onto an up facing protrusion of the locking member when the bed is stretched to the in-use position. The tube will be made to stay engaged with the protrusion by the gravity when unexpected force acts on any part of the frame other than the tube therefore the safety device can prevent unintentional folding of the bed effectively.